TheJewel in the Hand:
On Some Old Japanese Manuscripts of a Buddhist Scripture He Huanhuan
The Jewel in the Hand is one of the Indian Buddhist Scholar Bhāviveka’s（ca.
490- 570）principal works that is only available in the Chinese translation of Xuanzang玄
奘（600/ 602- 664）. There it is titled the Dasheng zhangzhen lun 大 乘 掌 珍 論. The important position of this text in the intellectual history of Madhyamaka philosophy has been widely known; its French translation was published by de La Vallée Poussin in 1933, and a Sanskrit “reconstruction” by N. Aiyaswami Sastri was published in 1949.
However, in contrast to Bhāviveka’s other main works such as theMadhyamakahrdaya and its autocommentary theTarkajvālā,and thePrajñāpradīpa,not many studies on this Chinese translation of theJewel in the Hand in two scrolls have been published to date.
Thanks to the Old Buddhist Manuscripts in Japanese Collections of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies, theOnline Culture Heritageand the Database of National Cultural Properties organized by the Japanese Agency of Cultural Affairs, and the Nezu Museum, this paper is able to introduce and to analyze the main textual features of five Old Japanese Manuscripts of theJewel in the Handthat have been preserved respectively in the Tokyo National Museum, the Nezu Museum, the Kongō-ji, the Kōshō-ji and the Nanatsu-dera, with their full or partial color copies at my disposal. Furthermore, I briefly discuss the similarities and differences among the manuscripts and xylographs of the editions of the Chinese canon that are available to me, that is, the Fangshan Stone Tripitaka and the Korean Tripitaka, etc., as well as the critical editions made by premodern Japanese and Chinese scholars.
Taking the Jewel in the Hand as an example, I seek to gain a further and, it is hoped, a better understanding of the ancient Chinese Buddhist manuscripts that are preserved in Japan-these are known as the Old Japanese Manuscripts-that were transcribed during the late Nara Period to the late Heian Period. Due to obvious limitations, I will not discuss in this essay Bhāviveka’s arguments with certain Buddhist and non-Buddhist ideas that would otherwise give us a further insight into the many aspects of sixth century Indian intellectual history.
Comparative Research on Inscriptions and Versions of Xu gaoseng zhuan:
Tanxun and Sengyong’s Biographies Shotoku Kuramoto
In this paper, I focus on the biographies of Tanxun and Sengyong, the inscriptions of which Daoxuan is known to have consulted when creating Xu gaoseng zhuan, and compare these inscriptions and versions of Xu gaoseng zhuan to investigate the way in which Daoxuan referred to the former. Additionally, I also make clear the complicated relationship between transformations in versions ofXu gaoseng zhuanand the inscription of Tanxun’s biography as well as its original draft.
On the Tanxun monument we find the Tang dynasty year of Wude 5（when Tanxun’s corpse was cremated and a stūpa was built）, as well as the names of his disciples. The monument’s inscription text was created by Mingze, who died at the end of the Sui, before it was built at the beginning of the Tang. When creating Tanxun’s biography, Daoxuan referred to Mingze’s inscription draft found inBieji;there is no way he had information from the Tang dynasty. In Japanese copies ofXu gaoseng zhuansuch as that of Kongō-ji, one finds only an older form of Tanxun’s biography that referred to this draft. Also, the first Koryo canon and Dongchansi versions are very similar to these Japanese copies. On the other hand, in versions found in the second Koryo canon and Zhaocheng jinzang, “Wude 5” and disciple information that includes errors have been added. Also, the Sixi edition version corrects Tanxun’s year of death to Kaihuang 19, and includes his disciples’names almost entirely correctly. It is possible that this version referred to the Tanxun monument’s inscription after it had been built.
Above, I was able to make clearer the causes of changes in the text found in Xu gaoseng zhuanversions by taking into account the differences in an inscription draft and actual inscription text.
Looking at my findings as a whole from my examination of inscriptions and Tanxun and Sengyong biographies, one can see that Daoxuan tried to rather faithfully reflect the events and accomplishments found in inscriptions, often only making small modifications to original materials, such as changing some characters and the order of phrases. While doing so, he also tried to place more emphasis on sympathetic resonance
（ganying）and stories of spiritual efficacy（lingyan）than the originals. However, there are cases in which valuable information remains on monuments that Daoxuan did not include in biographies, such as the information regarding meditation methodology in Tanxun’s
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monument biography. Also, the passages Daoxuan took from monuments’texts do include places for which the original context is hard to understand due to his omissions or changed phrases, as well as differences from these inscriptions. In cases like Tanxun’s biography and Sengyong’s biography for which inscriptions remain, such original materials should be given the most weight. Also, even when inscriptions are not extant, deciphering biographies while assuming that changes like the ones shown in this paper were made to the original materials can surely contribute to a deeper understanding ofXu gaoseng zhuan.
Naito Konan research on Dunhuang documents（Buddhist scriptures and Buddhism- related documents）in the British Museum
Yukiko Gen
Naito Konan left Japan in July 1924 for the purpose of investigating Dunhuang documents in Britain and France. This paper will focus on the research in the British Museum and clarify the actual situation of research on Dunhuang documents（Buddhist scriptures and Buddhism-related documents）through research notebooks. There are four notebooks in all that recorded Stein documents. The total number of documents recorded in the notebooks is 136, and Buddhism-related documents is 33 of them. These 33 documents include Commentary on the Śrīmālādevīsimhanāda-sūtra（S. 524勝鬘經疏）, Records concerning the sacred treasury of the Law（Dharmaratna）under successive dynasties, or views different from the preceding work on the history of the Dhyana School in China（S. 516歴代法宝記）, The Mahāparinirvāna-sūtra（S. 81大般涅槃經）with colophon dated the fifth year of Tianjian（506 A. D.）etc.
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On the National Treasure Manuscript of the Jingang chang tuoluoni jing and kōri
Kō’ichi Fujimoto
The Jingang chang tuoluoni jing 金 剛 場 陀 羅 尼 経（one scroll 一 巻）衾whose manuscript designated as national treasure I examine here-was translated into Chinese 587 by the Indian scholar-monk Jñānagupta闍那崛多.
According to its colophon, a man from Kawachi no kuni Shiki-kōri河内国志貴評 commissioned a monk to copy the scripture in the memory of his parents and ancestors in the yearhinoeinu丙戌年. We know that the administrative reform carried out in 702 led to the replacement of the appellation kōri 評with gun 郡. On the basis of this historical detail, the year hinoeinu was calculated to be 686, which made this the earliest extant manuscript copied in Japan.
However, at the time of this calculation the existence of a notation on the reverse side of the folio was unknown. By holding the folio against a strong light, we were able to decipher the notation ‘year 8 of the Tenpyō era’, i. e. 746, which means that this is not the oldest manuscript copied in Japan.
An Inquiry into Buddhist Teaching 諮 詢 仏 法 録by Enni 円 耳：His Ten Questions and Poems by Master Shoun松雲大師
Tamami Furuse
A document titledAn Inquiry into Buddhist Teaching（IBT）stored in Koshoji興聖
寺 in Kyoto has recently been made available to the public for the first time. It was already known that Enni, the founder of Koshoji, had compiled some questions about Zen Buddhism and showedIBTto a Korean monk, Master Shoun who had come to Japan in order to negotiate the return of Korean hostages captured during the wars between Japan and Korea in the late 17th century.
IBTis composed of 10 questions about the basic thought of Linji臨済Zen school, each of which includs the words “I ask for your judgement” while discussing the content of Zen philosophy. In the 10th question, Enni revealed that he finally acquired true understanding by the phrase “parting from thinking and things” in Qixinlun起信論；he also states the 6th Zen patriarch appeared to him during his meditation.
Enni submittedIBTto Master Shoun while the latter was staying at Honpoji本法
寺in Kyoto. According to some records, Master Shoun was very surprised to read it because Enni had captured well the essence of Zen teaching. Master Shoun in return gave Enni his poems. Master Shoun’sCollected Poems by Master Shimei（CPMS）四溟堂大師集 , contains six poems, organized into two groups of three under separate sub-headings.
The three poems in the first group under the sub-heading ‘Three Japanese monks visited from Five-Mountain-Zen temples. I gave poems as asked about Buddhist teaching’were probably written during his stay in Kyoto, because ‘asked about Buddhist teaching’refers to IBT. Those three poems expound what self-awakening is and how it can be reached.
The three poems in the second group subtitled ‘Poems for Japanese teacher Enni’were given to Enni either directly or possibly by his disciple a year after Master Shoun left Japan. From these poems we get a clear understanding of Master Shoun’s personality;
humbleness, generosity and friendliness as a monk.
IBT is valuable not only as it reveals how much Enni, who converted from the Nichiren school to Zen, was influenced by Zen, but also because it performed the important role of improving the image of Japanese monks among Master Shoun and his compatriots who had previously held negative feelings towards the Japanese as the result of the recent wars.
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